


ELECTRICITY!

by Golden_Ticket



Series: TOGETHER! [3]
Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, Kid Fic, VM with children, behave!verse, family fic, musical theatre, oy dancing boy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-28 16:16:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15053054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Golden_Ticket/pseuds/Golden_Ticket
Summary: orAll You Really Have To Do Is Shine***“Mom, Dad,” comes yelling from far off and Scott uses his jacket sleeve to quickly wipe off the tears she’s been crying, before half-turning her out of their embrace, with almost a dancer’s spin to it, and then Bellamy comes thrashing around the corner, barely stopping in time before he would have crashed into both his parents. “Look what they got us!”He points down at the oversized shirt he’s wearing. Which is probably fitting just right on the other three boys but he has always been little for his age, so now he’s swimming in it a bit. He looks so pleased with himself still, she can only grin and pull the fabric at his shoulders, to make sure it falls right. Scott goes directly for his son’s mop of hair to ruffle it. It’s wavy now, like the way his father had worn it in the Latch days and Tessa thinks Bellamy needs a haircut or at least a hair band for all the choreography lessons he’s going to get now.“That’s a great shirt, buddy,” Scott says because he can tell his wife doesn’t trust herself to speak quite yet.***Tessa and Scott's oldest son is quite the talent.





	ELECTRICITY!

**Author's Note:**

> Hello friends! 
> 
> As I am working hard on BALANCE! (the sequel to BEHAVE! which is now finished!), I had the idea for this one-shot, the first of hopefully many to come set at different times in the Behave!verse. All those one-shots can be found in the series overview for TOGETHER!, this one being, as mentioned, the first.
> 
> This can be read and understood without having read either BEHAVE! or STAY! though. It is shameless fluff with tons of VM children. It has soft spoilers for BALANCE! (because it is set after the happenings of that, so if you want to read purely chronologically, save this one for later).
> 
> As always, I am completely looking forward to your feedback!

“I just…,” Tessa tries, she really tries to get through this today but she doesn’t think she can. “How can I let him go?” She grabs Scott’s jacket collar, pulling him in and ponders for a moment if she can get away with crying onto his lapel like a teenager. She’s still crying anyway, or sobbing more like, and she rarely ever does this in public but now that she isn’t hidden in the folds of her husband’s clothes, she’s so very visible doing it. So this is embarrassing. But she doesn’t care, not a bit. Today is terrible. It’s wonderful, too. But mostly it’s terrible.

 

Bellamy had run off with the other boys, into the dressing room probably, and he hadn’t even turned around to wave. At exactly ten years, five months and thirteen days, he doesn’t need her anymore. He doesn’t need her and he won’t miss her and she’ll be in London and he’ll be in Toronto and for five days out of every week for the next six months, someone else would be raising her son. “I can’t stop crying.” She looks up at Scott who, for once, is emotionally completely stable, he just holds her and rubs her shoulders and presses a kiss to her temple, the rim of his glasses nudging her face. (He wears them 50% of the time nowadays and she is still not fully used to them, much like to the grey hairs on the sides of his dark headed hair. He’ll always feel twenty-eight to her somehow.)

 

“It’s not forever,” Scott comforts her softly. “We still have the weekends with him and look, he’s so happy to be here.”

“I know, I know,” Tessa wails. “But it’s so hard. I’m gonna miss him so much.”

“Me too,” Scott mutters and pulls her in again. “This is right, though, Tess. It’s the right thing for him.” 

 

Scott is right, of course he’s right. The day Bellamy got the call, she doesn’t think her son had ever been that happy. Intellectually —having seen the last ten boys at the final showing of the 10 day prep/audition workshop two weeks ago— she knew that Bell was going to get it but once it was confirmed, she was still a bit unprepared. Seeing him off for the one and a half weeks of workshopping had felt like driving him to skating camp, which had always been fine. But now, dropping him off for six months of rehearsals and training was heart-wrenching. And then after the six months, his contract (her ten year old son has a fully formulated and stipulated stage work contract like a full grown adult!), his grown-up-people contract, had him bound for six months, to be re-negotiated at that point, to see if he could and would go on for another six (which he would, she knows this already, her son is going to be practically living in the Toronto theatre district for the next one and a half years, so by the time she’ll get him back home, he’ll be _twelve_ years old and he is ten now, just _ten_ ). 

 

“Mom, Dad,” comes yelling from far off and Scott uses his jacket sleeve to quickly wipe off the tears she’s been crying, before half-turning her out of their embrace, with almost a dancer’s spin to it, and then Bellamy comes thrashing around the corner, barely stopping in time before he would have crashed into both his parents. “Look what they got us!”

He points down at the oversized shirt he’s wearing. Which is probably fitting just right on the other three boys but he has always been little for his age, so now he’s swimming in it a bit. He looks so pleased with himself still, she can only grin and pull the fabric at his shoulders, to make sure it falls right. Scott goes directly for his son’s mop of hair to ruffle it. It’s wavy now, like the way his father had worn it in the _Latch_ days and Tessa thinks Bellamy needs a haircut or at least a hair band for all the choreography lessons he’s going to get now.

 

“That’s a great shirt, buddy,” Scott says because he can tell his wife doesn’t trust herself to speak quite yet.

“Thank youuuu,” Bell says and mock-curtsies, ever the little jokester and then jumps around a bit like the ball of electricity he is. It’s really funny how much alike him and Scott are, the same restless energy, the same sense of humour and swagger (somewhere there, slowly emerging from inside the child he still is, is the cocky braggadocio of Scott’s teenage years as well), the same boundless kindness and care for others. In her wedding vows, Tessa had said she could think of nothing better than having a son exactly like Scott and now she does. And now she also has to let him go, to follow his own dream. Way, way, way before she ever thought she would have to. He’s just a kid, still. But his dreams are so big and who is she to stand in the way of them?

“I’m so proud of you,” she says eventually, because she can’t help herself and her voice breaks so much she has to mask it as a cough.

 

“Thanks, Mom,” her son grins. “I’ll be alright.”

“Yes, you will,” Scott nods and pats his shoulder. “You listen to what your teachers and coaches tell you, right? And to Jackson’s parents? They’re your second Mom and Dad now, bud. So you gotta listen to them like you listen to us.”

“Or maybe even a little better,” Tessa jokes weakly and both her boys laugh.

“Or that, yeah,” Scott agrees and then pulls his son against his frame for a side hug. “We’re just a phone call away, okay? Call whenever you want, or Skype, we can be here in two hours. Alright?”

Bellamy nods and rolls his eyes a little because he is at that age where he already knows everything. And anyway, (openly) needing affectionate parents is _so_ last year.

 

“You have fun here,” Scott continues, not having seen his son giving him that ‘My Dad is being sentimental again’-face from his vantage point above him. “Work hard and make yourself proud. We already are.”

“I will,” Bellamy promises and breaks away, all on his own, a big boy now. Scott holds Tessa tighter to his side at the loss of him. (And she can tell this isn’t easy for him either, he is just being the rock today.)

 

“You got everything?” Tessa asks, her voice doing a little better now and Bell nods.

“See you Friday?” Bellamy checks, which his parents confirm in perfect unison and he smiles. “Bye then.” He says, waves, turns around and heads back to the end of the hall to start his musical theatre bootleg camp. All on his own, like a proper grown-up performer. Before he rounds the corner though, he stops and turns around to wave once more, on his white shirt in big red letters it says “BILLY”. 

 

And then he’s gone.

 

Surprisingly, the six months of Bellamy rehearsing in Toronto to become the titular character in the first stationary all-Canadian production of _Billy Elliot_ go by extremely fast. He comes home nearly every weekend, either taking the train when Billy-Rose makes the trip from Toronto (where she studies) to London (where she gets skating lessons from Scott) or gets picked up by either his Mom or Dad or Grandpa. Once home, he is quick to give his whole family an update over dinner, about how the ballet goes, how he is getting better at tap and somehow worse at singing but that the director has been in for a couple of sessions and said his acting was awesome and shows them the latest acrobatic trick he learned (three months in, he can run up a wall and backflip out of it, Tessa has a heart attack every time). On Saturday he skates, partners for Quinn’s juniors or plays hockey against his sister Mia after her practice. 

 

With roughly one and a half months to go until the first show, Tessa get’s him from the train station and he tells her that he has been chosen to play opening night, the real one, not the one for previews but the actual opening night where all the papers will be there and the cameras and maybe even CBC. (Tessa wonders for a moment if maybe that is the point, that they had chosen Bellamy to go on for that special occasion because of who his parents are and how they might draw in some extra attention for the production but decides that, even if that might be a welcome side-effect, Bellamy deserves it and has been chosen on his own merit…she has seen him dance and honestly, that boy deserves the biggest spotlight, absolutely regardless of what his last name is.)

 

The night before the show opens to a tepidly curious Canada, Tessa and Scott load all their remaining children into the mini-van. Mia claims the rights to a seat in the second row because she is, at nine and a bit, the oldest with Bell gone and because she wants to sit next to their very responsible and diligent 19-going-on-30 German Au-Pair Dani, whom their oldest daughter is completely obsessed with (she’s been with them a month and Tessa already dreads the end of her year with them when they’re probably gonna have to pry Mia off of her with a spatula at the airport seeing her off). Milo and his twin sister Emilia (nearly six years old and more willing to fight each other than their big sister on seating rights) are quibbling in the third row, nice and far away from their parents in the front. They drive straight through to Toronto and check into a spacious town loft, an AirBnB Tessa had rented from Friday to Sunday. This way, they could get Bell from his ‘co-Billy’ Jackson’s parents house (they had and would foster him for the time he lived in Toronto) and have their oldest with them before his big day and after. And boy, is he ever thankful for the support. The hugs he gives them as they pick him up border on seven-year-old-Bellamy length, which hadn’t happened in, well, a little over three years.

 

A little later, they’re sitting together at a wide and severe mahogany table, large windows at their backs opening up to the twinkling Toronto skyline. Dani is entertaining the twins by making her cutlery play out a little scene from _Beauty and the Beast_ , while Mia goes to town on her favourite food (plain Spaghetti with Ketchup, which had been a joy to order at the Italian place they had picked for take-out). Bellamy is sitting at his usual spot he occupies when he’s at home (next to his Dad) and Tessa can see him fork around in his potato-broccoli casserole from her place at the head of the table, cringing at the steel on ceramic sound that he’s making.

 

“No appetite?” She asks him tentatively.

“I can’t eat,” he tells her and finally puts his fork down. “I’m too nervous.”

“That’s understandable,” she says and Scott picks up the thread reliably.

“But you really should try and get a couple of bites in at least,” her husband says. “To keep your strength up for tomorrow. I know how it feels to be this nervous. Before big competitions, I could never eat a thing…but it’s better if you do.”

“Your father’s right,” Tessa agrees. “It’s for fuel, you know, so you’re properly awake.”

“At our first Olympics, or was it the second? I don’t remember. Anyway, you know, I couldn’t eat a thing and your Mom was eating so well, trying cottage cheese for the first time and everything,” Scott tells their son. “I didn’t. And then I ended up not facing the judges at the end of our Free Dance.”

“That was the first Olympics,” Tessa says. “But that didn’t happen because you didn’t eat, that happened because you didn’t listen to me.”

Bellamy drops his head into his hands dramatically and mutters to the ground: “This is not helping.”

 

“Sorry, kiddo,” Scott says and puts his hand on his son’s shoulder. “All I’m trying to say is, eat something. You’ll feel better.”

“I know,” Bell whines. “I just can’t even…like I can’t, chew. And my stomach feels funny. I’m so afraid of tomorrow. What if I mess it up? With the turns and everything. Or forget what I have to say?”

“Then you continue on and make it work,” Tessa says encouragingly and smiles at him.

“Exactly,” Scott agrees. “You know how I told you I fell at Worlds one time? And we still won? Because your Mom pulled me through and I got it together and pushed on. And I did the wrong steps at our very _first_ competition but we kept skating anyway. Just…keep your head up and go do the next thing you’re supposed to do. You know this play, right?”

“Yeah,” Bellamy murmurs and lifts his head again from the shield of his palms.

“You’ve rehearsed and trained for half a year,” Scott enthuses. “You know what to do. Just get into opening position, it’s just like skating. Just get there and do what you practiced. And if you fall, you get up.” 

“You’ll do great, baby, I know it,” Tessa says because it’s true, she’d come out to see two of his previews and he was magnificent. (Honestly he is so good, she wondered briefly if there might have been a mix-up in the hospital and they accidentally gave them a prodigy alien-superstar baby to take back home because what he had learned to do in those six months was really kind of out of this world.)

 

“I just don’t want to disappoint you,” their son says with a tiny voice. “And Grandma and Nanna and everyone who is coming to see me.”

“You won’t,” Scott promises him. “No matter what happens, we love you and we are so, so proud of you. All of us. Right, Mia?” He turns to Mia, sitting opposite of him, because she has started listening in on their conversation.

“Yes,” she affirms easily. “Nobody I know can dance as well as you do. Not even Mom and Dad.”

(And that stings a little bit but it’s also kind of true.)

“Harsh,” Scott nods and pulls a face and Tessa has to laugh. “But fair. So you heard it, Bell. We’re all gonna be cheering you on tomorrow and we’re all so proud of you already. It’s going to be just fine and everyone who’s coming will be so happy just to see you up there, you wouldn’t even need to do anything.”

 

This is also true. After dropping a shaky Bellamy off at the stage door of the Elgin Theatre at four PM the next day, Tessa, Scott and the rest of the Virtue-Moir gang wait for the rest of their family to trickle in. The Grandparents Alma, Joe and Kate get there together, Charlie and his family in the car right behind them (Danny et al can’t make it but have already promised to be there for Bell’s next show), with Jordan and her family arriving roughly at the same time. Kevin is there but Casey couldn’t make it happen with work travel—but a little while later his wife and daughter join the group. Then there’s Cara and Sheri and their lot, Bellamy’s kindergarten teacher Allison and her husband, six of his friends from London, Billy-Rose and her parents Marie-France and Patrice, all the way from Montreal. Their surprise guest is JF, whom Tessa and Scott have not seen in person in about a year and so that’s the first time that day that Scott in particular gets a little bit emotional.

 

“Man, how are you here?” He asks their old mental prep coach after giving him a bear hug.

“I wouldn’t have missed this for the world,” JF says easily and hugs Tessa, too. “I heard it’s quite the show.”

“Honestly, I haven’t watched a thing yet,” Scott admits. “I didn’t go to the previews because I wanted to be surprised tonight.”

“Oh, exciting,” JF nods. “So you’re probably a mess right now?”

“Dude,” Scott coughs, then pauses because he sees something that irks him and takes two strides out of the conversation to pluck Milo from a lamp post. “No climbing. Go find Dani, she can take you and Emmy to get some ice cream while we wait.” Then he comes back into the circle of the Quebecois and Tessa and says: “I’d say I’m more nervous than Bell but he’s pretty nervous too. I’m definitely feeling it though.”

“It’s going to be great,” Tessa promises the round.

“Oh yeah, she’s seen it,” Scott says, wrapping an arm loosely around her waist and pulling her in. “But I wouldn’t let her spoil me.”

 

By the time the show starts (after Bellamy came out to walk his first red carpet ever, dressed very smartly in a forest green tux and an adorable pine-cone tie for the occasion that is also the first time the entire Virtue-Moir family is going to a fancy event together where they’re being photographed), it becomes evident that Scott had better _had_ let himself be spoiled a little bit. 

 

Because he is a mess by the third song. And yes, he had listened to the music before, so much  so that he could —and did— mouth along the lyrics to most of the numbers, had even run lines with his son on occasion, but he had no real idea about the story or how it would all come together in the end. And come together, it does.

 

The first time Tessa can see his jaw drop where he sits beside her (Emmy tugging on his arm one seat over puzzled about the same thing), is when Bellamy starts speaking in a flawless (from what she can tell at least) Geordie accent (“Foocked ef ai kno”). The first time her husband makes a blind grab for her hand is after the first boxing scene, which is the third or the fourth in the play, and he whispers: “He’s such a good actor!” Completely in awe. And a little while later, when Tessa is enjoying the flashbacks to ballet class, watching fifteen girls in little tutus dancing their hearts out (and they are so good, she wants to scream and clap and hoot for them), Emmy climbs out of her chair and onto her father's lap and points at the stage: “Look Daddy, Bell’s _twizzles_.”

 

“It’s called pirouettes when it’s ballet, honey,” Scott corrects her on a whisper as Tessa chuckles, watching him not take his eyes off his son on stage. And really, those first couple of pirouettes that Bellamy manages to portray as a completely believable progression in skill, are so good, they’re even better than they had been in the previews. Bell’s got this, Tessa knows it. He will be breathtaking tonight.

 

And he is. He is acting so well, the accent barely slipping once and his choreography is sharp and on point. The first number where he does tap with the other boy, Aaron, who plays Micheal, Tessa chances a peek at Scott who has rocked to the edge of his seat, dangling Emmy on his knee and they’re both equally transfixed at the stage a few rows ahead of them (but Emmy is staring at the meter-high tapping items of clothing on the stage while Scott is enthralled by their son’s footwork). 

“Holy shit,” he whispers under his breath but barely manages to get his mouth to close enough to utter the words. His face is completely priceless. Tessa lives for it, for her son being an absolute revelation, all his month-long training of balance, ballet, tap dancing, singing, acting, acrobatics, street dance, dialect coaching and staging, of hammering this complete show into his brain like a goddamn professional paying off and for her husband getting to watch all of it for the first time. She is so proud she could burst, her chest is literally overflowing and she has to reach for Scott’s hand again to contain at least the worst of it. 

“Holy shit,” he whispers again and Tessa can’t be mad at him, not even with their daughter hearing the expletive loud and clear (judging by her scandalised look at her mother) on his lap. 

 

A bit later, there is drama unfolding on stage and it gets loud enough for Milo beside Tessa to grab both her and Dani’s hand where he sits between them. Her youngest son flinches as Billy’s Dad in the play screams at his son about how his mother is dead and so it doesn’t matter if she would have let him go to the ballet audition he so wanted to go to. And once the Dad has stopped shouting, Bellamy does and he sounds exactly like Scott back in the day, trying to get into his more angrier characters on ice. Tessa looks around to see her husband react to this number because she already knows it will leave him completely floored.

 

The music is pushy and loud, angry and almost violent and Bellamy is angrily screaming and then tap dancing his way through a tour-de-force, of dancing through moving stage pieces, other actors, upstage and downstage and yelling and tapping and going _fucking_ insane. And Mia was so right, he’s so much better than they ever were at that age, probably later as well. His presence is demanding and compelling and Tessa only manages to look away from him and at her husband because she has seen this performance a couple of times already. 

 

Scott is clutching his daughter, his face spasming along with Bell’s mirroring his anger and tapping his feet along with the rhythm. He looks like he’s on a completely different planet. At a certain point, he just turns around to her, his eyes huge and unbelieving and looks at her like he’s not trusting his senses at all, like he’s entered a strange new universe and Tessa is the only person who can help him make sense of it. “Unbelievable,” he mouths and his wife smirks, smug and satisfied. And so, so, so proud.

“I told you,” she whispers. “He’s phenomenal.” 

“Holy-”

“Scott,” she warns. Best not to make the cursing a habit now that they got through eleven years without it.

“Sorry,” he says and looks back at the stage where their son is gearing up for the finale of the number, turns, taps, shouts once more and then lets himself fall down to the ground. Scott doesn’t wait to see if anybody follows, he starts up from his seat, Emmy firmly in his arms and manages to clap frantically still.

 

But he is just the first to give the standing O going into intermission and the rest of their extended family scattered around the venue rises up too, yelling and cheering and Bellamy gets off stage in a _Black_ but Tessa can see him grin from ear to ear anyway. By the time Scott falls back into his seat, he’s crying. 

“I can’t believe how good he is,” he says, choked and emotional as Emmy wiggles from his lap and climbs past Tessa to join her brother, sister and their AuPair at the end of the row. 

“You’ve seen nothing yet,” Tessa promises him and leans in to kiss his still-shell-shocked face. “Come on, let’s get a beer in you before you completely collapse.”

 

Intermission goes by in a whirl of praise and disbelief. Most notable is one of Bell’s friends mothers who taps Tessa on the shoulder to tell her how amazed she is and how it’s so worth it that Bellamy has missed the last school year in London, even if his friends had missed him so much.

“You know I’m so glad he never paid attention to those kids who tried to make fun of him for dancing,” Erica, the Mom says. “He is doing an amazing job up there.”

“Thank you,” Tessa smiles and arguably gets a little preachy. “You know, with an ice dancer for a father who was always _very_ secure in his masculinity, I would hope Bellamy always does exactly what he feels like doing, regardless of what anybody might think about it.”

“And that is just right,” Erica enthuses. “Just right! Congratulations, your son is such a talent! He should keep doing this, no matter what anyone says.” And then she’s gone. 

 

Tessa appreciates the sentiment, she really does, she just wishes it wasn’t a topic at all anymore…when Bellamy had started prioritising ballet over figure skating, he’d been _eight_ and that had been back in the year of the Lord 2029, how was boys dancing still a thing for people to get worked up about?! She will never understand. Not after knowing Scott her whole life, whose manliness had not been defined by anything other than what kind of man he was _outside_ of anything he maybe liked to do with his time and especially not after watching Bellamy grow up to be a considerate, funny and self-confident boy who wouldn’t stand for anybody telling him what he could and couldn’t do because of his gender. (The fact that he was still picked on for it in school for a hot second there, is why the show, as dated as it was maybe, is still strikingly current and very important to be put on and considered!)

 

The rest of the break is spent trying to talk to as many people there for their son as possible while simultaneously trying to locate their kids and nanny in between of the crowds flurrying about and gather them all back to their seats once the bell was rung for intermission’s end. The second half continues with barely a hitch. Bell doesn’t hit one high note and stumbles on one dance step in the big Boogie number but he recovers quickly both times and continues on stubbornly with his best game face on, just as his Dad had told him the night before. And then the story brings him to London, to his great big audition for the Royal Ballet Academy. And _Electricity_ happens.

 

Which is the moment Tessa is pretty sure Scott dies for a second there beside her. With Emmy back on her allocated seat beside him, his hands are free to fidget as he does and eventually, Tessa just grabs both of his hands and pulls them over to her lap, to hold him there as he watches. The number starts with just singing and acting, which Bellamy has gotten so so much better at over the course of his rehearsal period. But then…oh, then comes the big, show-stopping choreography which is basically Bell pulling out all the stops and making every single paying guest in the audience get their money’s worth tenfold. 

 

His dancing faces are Scott’s, the bend of his knees is Scott’s, the rotation to his pirouettes, all Scott and still all Bellamy. Scott barely had time to catch a breath after the Old-and-Young-Billy dance number (where his son was flying on a harness above all their heads and was literally dancing in mid air?!) but now Electricity with its artistic and street dance elements just knocks him completely off kilter. Tessa can see it on his face, he is completely loosing it and glancing past him, down the row at Scott’s parents and the rest of their immediate family, she sees his awe mirrored on all of their mesmerised faces. It’s enough to make her cry quietly as well. Pride is not a strong enough word to describe what she is feeling. Bellamy is doing this, all by himself. A true performer…so excellent already. Even with how numbingly nervous he was and might still be.

 

Finally, the thing Bell has been _most_ afraid of (as by his own admission over breakfast) —the circa twenty-three pirouettes at the end of the number— is coming on and he takes a deep breath to steady himself where he stands in the middle of the stage. A breath that Tessa can’t help but mimic and hold Scott’s hands tighter as their son starts moving, fixing a spot there at the end of the theatre like a champ, the extension of his arms beautiful if still a bit too sharp as by the choreographic instruction, his legs placed just right for the push up off the floor and then he’s flying. Around and around and around and around as the music crescendoes and catches on itself and it’s a _dream._ And then it ends, just as on point, just as professional, just as measured and precise as he has danced all night and he stands there and the room explodes. 

 

Everybody is on their feet and the applause is roaring, deafening and Bellamy looks over the crowd, his eyes searching and his role falling by the way side for the moment that he looks for his family. His eyes find hers and she grins, her cheeks tear-streaked, and he grins back and then Scott whistles through his fingers beside her, the volume painful, and next shouts “BRAVO!” and “THAT’S MY SON!” and Bellamy laughs because it’s so loud that he can hear it on stage. It takes a long while for the audience to settle down again and even longer, once the show has already gone on, for Tessa to come back to reality, to realise that her hand will be black and blue in the morning because her and Scott had just held on to each other for dear life some moments ago.

 

The rest of the musical passes by almost in a flurry and it’s the last scene when Bellamy climbs down centre stage, high-fiving the conductor on his way down, that she turns her head again to watch her boy walk down the middle and out of the room and she can see the whole auditorium sniffle. Well, most are sniffling. Alma, Kate and Scott are _sobbing._ And she is honestly not far off, either. 

 

The encore (where her darling son tap dances in a tutu and looks fabulous doing it) is really, really necessary for them all to reign their crying in and turn it into cheers and whooo’s and laughter and eventually, it ends. Bellamy takes a last bow in the chorus line, being duly patted on the back by his fellow actors and actresses, and when the curtain finally comes down, Tessa’s whole row is still on their feet from applauding. 

 

As soon as the lights come on, she turns immediately to her husband. He knows it’s coming on instinct and meets her gaze and then just shakes his head at her once, a giant, red-eyed _mess._ On a last shaky sob, he pulls her in and hugs her for forever.

“We made that,” he mutters into her ear. “Holy fuck. I knew he was good, I didn’t know he was… _this_. Fuck, we have an amazing kid.”

“We have _four_ amazing kids,” she reminds him and he nods against her cheek (theirs are both wet and so it’s a little bit gross but she wouldn’t change it for the world). 

 

“I hope they’ll give me a little time to recover,” Scott sighs. “My heart can only take so much at a time. I’m so..I can’t even explain it.”

“I haven’t got the words,” Tessa jokes, a line from the show and Scott breaks out into a roaring laughter and then clamours for her face with his hands, pulls it away from his shoulder, looks at her like he wants to pray at her feet for a while and thank the Lord for his family and then he kisses her, long and passionately, until Emmy pushes herself in between them and demands to be let through to the others behind them. 

 

Scott lets her pass, breaking the kiss, but keeps his eyes on his wife. Dani’s got the children for now. 

“I love you,” he tells her breathlessly. “Thank you for these kids.”

“Thank _you_ ,” Tessa grins and pecks him on the lips, just briefly, before taking his hand and pulling. “Come on, let’s go see our star performer son.”

 

In the program that is eagerly being passed around in the lobby between their family and friends already, there is a little bio of their son next to a severe looking headshot. “Bellamy J. Moir,” it says on the last bit, “would like to thank his family and friends for the amazing support in the preparation of becoming Billy, most of all his parents Tessa and Scott, who have always encouraged him to go for his dreams, to work hard, to fly and to _shine._ ”

 

Tessa will keep a clipping of this in her keepsake chest for as long as she lives.

**Author's Note:**

> BILLY ELLIOT is one of the greatest musicals in the world and if you haven't seen it yet, you should. The stage version if available on DVD and so so good! I've seen that show like ten times at the West End and have cried every last time, it's that good.
> 
> I hope you like the idea of a little mini-Scott being Billy, I know I am obsessed with it :D
> 
> Here..have some Billy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1A86NI-iFI  
> ELECTRICITY: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muBrh7Y5ZL0  
> Express Yourself...aka the only tap dance number you will ever need to watch again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKm-pKfYQwg
> 
> Except for the Angry Tap Dance of course, which is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDElsfXr47Y


End file.
